


Belonging

by lily_zen



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-16
Updated: 2012-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-02 01:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_zen/pseuds/lily_zen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen thinks it's time for some team bonding. Surprisingly, Aisha agrees. Thus ensues the Let's Target Aisha version of Never Have I Ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belonging

Belonging

 

Fandom: Losers

Pairing: J/C is mentioned, but this is Aisha-centric

Rating: R

Warnings: drunkenness, a little slash, femslash mentioned

Archive: Ask

 

Author: Lily Zen

\---

Notes: Yes, I went and read the prompts on commentfic. This one is inspired by “Aisha’s POV on the most ridiculous game of Never Have I Ever.” Though it doesn’t fill it exactly to the letter. I think the prompt was supposed to be straight-up humor, but I like to make my stories _about_ something.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

\---

They’re bored and it’s late when Jensen comes up with it.

_Of course, it’s Jensen; all his fault._ Even Aisha’s _brain_ is slurring drunkenly at this point.

They have hit a temporary dead end on the whole Kill Max vendetta, but Clay is stubborn, persistent. He won’t let the men go home, not until she hears from one of her contacts who may or may not have something. Personally, she was betting on abso-fucking-lutely _nothing_.

But until then they’re stuck with each other in a too-small house, sharing rooms until Clay feels he’s beaten this already-dead horse into submission. Four former-Spec Ops soldiers and her—a terrorist’s daughter—all slowly grinding away at each other’s sanity.

“Let’s play a game!” Jensen suggests. For some reason, she always adds an exclamation mark in her head to everything he says, even if his voice comes out quiet and droll.

She’s in the living room at the time, sprawled out on a second-hand couch that is ugly as sin and has what looks like a Coke stain on one of the cushions, methodically cleaning her guns and sharpening knives. It’s not Parcheesi, but it passes the time. Aisha knows it disturbs the guys whenever they see her pick up a knife. There is a certain thing that she does while she is sharpening them, some movement or expression that reminds them of Roque and, by proxy, Roque’s betrayal. Normally she tries to spare them the reminder and does this in the privacy of her quarters, but she is sharing with Pooch—not Clay; now that the ruse is over she tends to avoid him—who is on the phone, making kissy-noises at his wife. There’s only so much that Aisha feels she should be expected to cope with, and that is outside the boundaries of her relationship with these men.

“Jensen,” Clay growls, and it is almost in the same tone of voice he uses to warn them over comms.

To her infinite surprise, Aisha butts in the conversation. “What game?” she asks, ignoring the way Jensen has abruptly ceased typing and looks up at her with an expression akin to shock.

The bespectacled man looks around the room at his audience of two. Cougar is holed up in their room doing whatever it is Cougar does in there. Aisha doesn’t know, and she doesn’t encourage nosiness in herself as a trait. That leads to trouble. So if Cougar is hollowing out dead goat heads and preparing an altar for bloody, ritual sacrifice, that’s okay. It won’t affect their working relationship. Clearly Jensen hadn’t thought past his impulsive suggestion, thinking that everyone would tell him to fuck off before the words even finished escaping him.

Clay is looking vaguely curious-smug-amused at Aisha’s seemingly out of character behavior. _Fuck you, Clay_ , she thinks, _I like games just as much as the next person_. And she thinks if she takes apart her .35 again the guys are going to buy her a cowboy hat and start calling her Puma or Ocelot or Lynx or something equally retarded. His expression goads her into prompting Jensen with his name—“Jensen?”—and a raised eyebrow.

“…Never Have I Ever?[!]” he replies hesitantly. Even then she is mentally adding an exclamation point.

She shrugs even though she doesn’t know what it is. Never admit a weakness.

Clay grumps. “Jensen, do I look like a teenage girl? Is this a slumber party?”

“Boss,” the blond haired man begins, obviously warming up to the idea, “It’s perfect. [!] We get wasted and it fosters good relationships among team members, and we’ve got plenty of booze here to make it a good game. [!]”

Much to her surprise, Clay actually seems to be considering it. Finally he shrugs his shoulders and concedes. “If you can get Pooch and Cougar in, then I’m in. Three people’s not enough for anything interesting.” The grin that follows that statement is almost wolfish, and Aisha is instinctively wary, except that just makes her more determined to do this. She never backs down, and she is not about to start when it comes to a stupid drinking game.

Jensen leaps up from his rolling office chair and scampers down the hallway.

Ten minutes later the five of them are crowded around the kitchen table. Jensen had to roll in his computer chair because there aren’t enough. The five of them are never at the table at the same time, so this is the first instance that anyone has noticed it. Aisha thinks maybe if they are going to be here awhile that someone should probably pick up an extra dining chair at the flea market. The job will end up falling to her because no one else will think of it, and she’ll refuse to do it because she doesn’t want to establish herself as the Team Mommy in this fucked up little family.

A shot glass is placed in front of her, empty for the moment. Each player has one, and in the middle of the table there’s a bottle of Gentleman Jack. Clay does the honors and fills up everyone’s glass for the first round. At least they aren’t using the cheap liquor. She’ll never admit it, but it gives her horrible heartburn.

“Alright, guys, fingers up!” Jensen crows. Four men raise up their hands and after a slight hesitation, Aisha follows their lead. “I’ll start!” That’s fortuitous, since Jensen is sitting to her right which means that she’ll be last. It’s enough time to learn the rules without seeming like she’s studying them. “Never have I ever…forced a street gang to do CAPE.”

“What?” Aisha blurts out before she can control herself and watches as Clay lowers a finger on his left hand and shoots his whiskey with the right.

He shrugs. “It was a long time ago. They tried to mug Roque and I while we were on leave in New York. We didn’t appreciate it.” There’s a brief flash of pain on their faces as they remember Roque, and Aisha hopes this isn’t about to turn maudlin.

Cougar goes next, quickly, to distract them all from their thoughts. “I’ve never burned down a building on accident.”

“Cougs, you have to say ‘never have I ever,’” Jensen scolds him.

The laconic sniper puts his hands down, shrugs, and gives Jensen an unreadable look. The hacker breaks their gaze first. Clay fills up his shot glass while they have a staring contest and shoots it. “Aisha,” he prompts, “Drink.”

She swallows the shot and puts down a finger just as Clay had.

Then to her shock, Pooch and Jensen do the same. “You two?” she asks, unable to quell her curiosity.

Pooch shrugs. “No biggie. Bad guys shot up my ‘copter, and I crashed into a building. It went up.”

She looks to Jensen. A blush rises to his pale cheeks. “Uh, well, you see, I was bored…” Clay groans, “So I thought I would see how high I could build our fire without using all our supplies. It got a little out of hand and burned down our tent. We had to sleep out in the open for the rest of the time.”

“A tent is not a building,” Aisha states the obvious.

Jensen shrugs. “We took a vote on it. It counts since you sleep in it and it protects you from the elements.”

The rounds go fast, and Aisha passes with flying colors. It’s not rocket science, this game. However she does notice that she has a lot less fingers up than everybody else does. Maybe it’s just because she’s more worldly and experienced. Yes, that’s it.

She does another shot.

“Never have I ever fucked a lesbian,” Pooch says.

Everybody takes a shot then, and the guys stare at her with question marks floating around their heads like cartoon characters. She can seem them. Prudently, she decides not to share this information with anyone. They might become concerned. “You first,” she says defensively.

Cougar and Jensen look at each other and grin.

Jensen turns to her and says, “In Bolivia we worked at a doll factory. There were these two women who worked there, a couple. One night Cougar and I were out pretty late partying with them. Things happened, things I really can’t discuss in front of my C.O. without feeling like I’m confessing my sins to a priest…or maybe my mom. Suffice it to say that it was a pretty wild night.”

But Aisha’s past subtlety. An awe, a horror, a disbelief is growing inside of her. Words are bubbling up and she can’t contain them anymore. She shouts out, “You had an _orgy_?! With Cougar?!” Jensen is blushing, Clay takes another shot just for kicks and giggles, Cougar is outright guffawing, and Pooch makes a thud as he falls out of his chair clutching his sides. Then she is also laughing raucously, slumping until her forehead hits the table, and trying to ignore that the picture in her brain is telling her that an orgy with Jensen and Cougar might actually be kind of fun. _No, brain, no, no._

In the midst of all the laughter, Clay is able to escape without telling his tale and all of the attention is put on her when they quiet down. Pooch refills her shot glass, and Aisha drinks it without thinking about it. “Oops,” she giggles when she realizes she’s holding an empty glass again. She’s only supposed to drink when somebody says something. Oh yeah, they all want to know about her lesbian sex experience. “Jesus, stop staring at me with your eyes,” she rolls hers.

Clay quips back, “What body part would you prefer then?”

She sticks her tongue out at him then silently scolds herself for doing so. That’s childish.

“Okay, okay,” Aisha sighs, “I was in college. One of my roommates was a lesbian. No, we did not have pillow fights in our underwear.”

“Details!” Jensen cries out, but Aisha backpedals.

“No way,” she says, “No fucking way. If I don’t get orgy details, you don’t get hot lesbian sex deets to fuel your hand-fucking sessions.”

“Who says I’m fucking my hand?” Jensen questions, and there’s a look on his face, and Aisha knows this is a trap but she’s taking the bait anyway.

“Well, then who are you fucking?”

Silence. Nobody says anything. Except she sees Cougar’s smirk widen, and he looks like such a smug fucking bastard, and—“OH MY GOD, NO FUCKING WAY.”

Clay does three shots in a row, and another one when Aisha says, “CAN I WATCH?” And why the fuck is she speaking so loudly?

Pooch mutters to himself and starts doing shots with Clay. Jensen and Cougar are laughing hysterically. Aisha’s annoyed because nobody is answering her question, goddamnit, and so she does another shot, yanking the bottle away from Clay. This is serious business, people. Her kitty is in need of some petting! Nobody seems to share her sense of urgency. Damn those men. Whiskey-dicks, the lot of ‘em. She might just have to go out hunting tonight—hunting for hard cock and reasonably attractive men. Hell, maybe she will find herself a smokin’ little lesbo. Girls can go all night, something that she learned in college.

Finally Jensen and Cougar’s laughter sputters out, even though every time Jensen glances at her from out of the corner of his eye, he giggles. She’s thinking about starting to punch him every time he does that—retraining him—when Clay says, “If you’re done, it’s Aisha’s turn.”

It is?

Oh shit, it is.

She needs something good, something to get all four of them. Eureka! “Never have I ever had anyone say to me that thing about shaking it three times and it’s considered playing with yourself when I’ve excused myself to go to the bathroom.”

Ha, ha. Take your shots, boys.

And she was right.

Drunken brilliance strikes again!

“That was low, Aisha,” Pooch shakes his head.

“Yeah,” she grins like a shark and does a shot.

Dammit! She’s got to stop doing that!

It’s Jensen’s turn, and he doesn’t even bother pretending this isn’t about paying Aisha back. “Never have I ever fantasized about two of my teammates fucking.”

“You bastard,” she growls as she takes her punishment like a champ…and her drink. It shouldn’t count as a fantasy. It only happened for like two seconds, which in drunk-time is a lot like two hours but who fucking cares?

Pooch takes a shot too but glares at everyone and says, “Not another word, assholes.” And nobody says a thing.

Cougar grins. “Never have I ever collected human ears.”

She’d had a sneaking suspicion that the guys were out to get her, but now they’ve dropped any pretense at subtlety and are outright gunning for her. Fuckers.

“Never have I ever used sex to manipulate someone.” _Someone’s a little bitter_.

“Never have I ever shot a gun at a fly.”

“Hey,” she cries, “That’s not fair. I was having some major PMS issues that day; shouldn’t count.”

“Still does,” Clay rumbles with a grin on his face.

“Fuck you all,” Aisha mumbles into her whiskey, “You’re my only friend, Jack.”

The laughter that’s startled out of Jensen actually makes him choke on his own saliva.

Aisha is rapidly approaching the point where she just wants this game to be fucking over.  She doesn’t think about what she says next, strategically or otherwise. If that were the case, she would have realized the odds of it being effective were next to nil. “Never have I ever participated in a weird religious ritual such as an animal sacrifice or public sex act.”

And no one drinks.

Jensen clears his throat. “Ah, Aisha, when no one drinks, the person who stated the ‘never have I’ has to drink.”

“WHAT?!” Consider that point reached. “Fuck you all, we’re done playing the ‘let’s get Aisha shit-faced’ game. You play with yourselves! Or each other! Or whatever it is you do.” The chair makes a scraping sound against the floor as she pushes back from the table and stomps out of the room.

In the kitchen, the men are laughing and congratulating themselves, and Aisha steps outside onto the back porch so she can’t hear them quite so clearly.

It’s dark and quiet, and she rapidly becomes bored. Loneliness begins to rise up within her and she is reminded of how she is always the outsider among them, among everywhere she has ever been. They are a team when they have something to do, a common enemy to rail against, but when the fighting has stopped she is anathema to them. They are tense in her presence; awkward, stilted. She doesn’t know how to bridge the gap and tells herself she doesn’t care.

The sliding door is opened and quietly closed.

Aisha ignores the noise, ignores whoever has dared to intrude on her solitude. She is drunk and angry and sad, and she wants to wallow in it, dammit. “Go away,” she barks when the offensive presence doesn’t remove itself.

“Don’t be mad,” Jensen shoots back, “It was fun. We wanted to get to know you, and if you’d stop being so prickly you’d admit that you had fun getting to know us too. So what if we picked at you a little bit? You’re the new kid on the block. We’ve been together for years. There’s only so much entertainment to be had making fun of the same people all the time.”

She refuses to respond, still holding on to the dregs of her rapidly fading pique.

“Come on, Aisha,” Jensen cajoles. His exclamation points have faded from her thoughts for the time being. “Come hang out with us.”

After a long silent moment, she turns. The look on his face, highlighted by the wan light leaking out from the house, is contrite and hopeful. She’s reminded of a dog she had when she was very small, and it makes her soften. “Fine,” she sighs.

When Jensen grins and whoops, and picks her up in a bear hug, she can’t help but laugh with him after her stiffness melts away. They head inside together, Jensen’s hands waving as he babbles about something or another. There’s a lot more drinking that night, a lot more laughter, and Aisha feels warm inside. Warm with whiskey and a little horniness and maybe other things too. She talks too loud— _everybody_ talks too loudly—and tells stories. Pooch makes popcorn with a blowtorch just to prove that he can, and she and Clay practice throwing the kernels in each other’s mouths across the room.

The last thing she remembers is watching Jensen and Cougar kiss, and that is a very stimulating mental picture that Aisha will remember for the rest of her days.

When she wakes up in the morning on the living room floor and stumbles into the bathroom to puke, piss, shower, and brush her teeth—maybe not in that exact order but it will all get done eventually—she discovers that someone has drawn on her face. For some reason, it just makes her feel like she belongs.

-FIN-

 

 


End file.
